Apple Park's Steve Jobs Theater includes rotating elevators, retracting demo room wall
When Apple hosts its "iPhone 8" event on Sept. 12, the media will be treated to elaborate features in the completed Steve Jobs Theater, such as a pair of custom rotating elevators and a clever way of ushering people into the product demonstration area.
The elevators spin as they rise or lower, meaning that people will always enter or exit them through the same door, Bloomberg said on Wednesday. Most buildings would use a less complex double-door system.
The theater reportedly occupies four underground stories, and will have a staircase spiraling alongside the walls. Its 1,000 seats are made of leather -- in March, an engineer claimed the building's budget meant that each seat cost the equivalent of $14,000.
Once the press event is over, an inside wall will retract to expose the product demonstration room where media can go hands-on, according to one Bloomberg source. At Apple's old Cupertino headquarters -- or at third-party venues, like the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco -- the company lacked much opportunity for a dramatic reveal.
The Steve Jobs Theater was just recently finished, lagging behind much of the rest of Apple Park. Indeed until Apple announced the details of the Sept. 12 event there were doubts that the building would be ready in time.
AppleInsider will provide live coverage from the theater, where Apple is expected to showcase the OLED-based "iPhone 8,", an LTE-equipped Apple Watch, and a new Apple TV with 4K and HDR.
The elevators spin as they rise or lower, meaning that people will always enter or exit them through the same door, Bloomberg said on Wednesday. Most buildings would use a less complex double-door system.
The theater reportedly occupies four underground stories, and will have a staircase spiraling alongside the walls. Its 1,000 seats are made of leather -- in March, an engineer claimed the building's budget meant that each seat cost the equivalent of $14,000.
Once the press event is over, an inside wall will retract to expose the product demonstration room where media can go hands-on, according to one Bloomberg source. At Apple's old Cupertino headquarters -- or at third-party venues, like the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco -- the company lacked much opportunity for a dramatic reveal.
The Steve Jobs Theater was just recently finished, lagging behind much of the rest of Apple Park. Indeed until Apple announced the details of the Sept. 12 event there were doubts that the building would be ready in time.
AppleInsider will provide live coverage from the theater, where Apple is expected to showcase the OLED-based "iPhone 8,", an LTE-equipped Apple Watch, and a new Apple TV with 4K and HDR.
Comments
The glass cylinder on the left. Hard to see because, well, glass.
The real work and biggest unknown has always been the insider of the theater itself. Even if we saw nothing above ground and they had planted foliage 6 months ago, we still wouldn't know what the auditorium, sound, or projector looks like.
Maybe they had a special 16K/8640p/132.7Mpx projector for presentations so that iPhone images can look as good as possible for years to come, or maybe there was a delay with the auditorium seating because they wanted to use special kangaroo leather from the scrotums of adolescent male joeys who died of natural causes (which includes roadkill).
PS: Isn't anyone going to bash me for posting images of the Steve Jobs Theater architectural drawings because it must mean I'm questioning the structural integrity of the design?